Systems Design

Systems design is the process of defining the architecture, components, modules, interfaces, and data for a system to satisfy specified requirements. One could see it as the application of systems theory to product development. There is some overlap with the disciplines of systems analysis, systems architecture and systems engineering. If the broader topic of product development "blends the perspective of marketing, design, and manufacturing into a single approach to product development," then design is the act of taking the marketing information and creating the design of the product to be manufactured. Systems design is therefore the process of defining and developing systems to satisfy specified requirements of the user. Until the 1990s systems design had a crucial and respected role in the data processing industry. In the 1990s standardization of hardware and software resulted in the ability to build modular systems. The increasing importance of software running on generic platforms has enhanced the discipline of software engineering.

Object-oriented analysis and design methods are becoming the most widely used methods for computer systems design. The UML has become the standard language in object-oriented analysis and design. It is widely used for modeling software systems and is increasingly used for high designing non-software systems and organizations.